Country of origin: Japan

Price: £999 or more second-hand

If you are to buy a second-hand B525 within our limit, it might be quite an old gun, and most likely well used. But that doesn’t matter too much, because the guns, even those built in the year of introduction (2003), are reliable in the long term and spares are easily available. In fact, although the current Miroku-built Browning is the B725, there are still plenty of new B525s on the market.

The B525 was the successor of the B425, and the design changes in the B525 were minimal. There was a slight re-design in the geometry of the hammers and sears to give crisper trigger pulls, and a smoothing of angles in the action frame to give rather more flowing lines. Engraving patterns were changed a little, too.

There were at least 27 different versions of the B525, without counting the different barrel lengths, so there should be something to suit everyone on the second-hand racks.